The Sheepshank Kids
by EstrangeloEdessa
Summary: Toby, Bella, Natalie. Three kids who loved their Daddy and each other. Three kids, each with their own dreams, their own goals in life, and their own way of getting there. Three ordinary, average kids who waited, smiled, and fought. Just three kids.
1. Waiting—Toby

Being a spider is a heck of a lot harder than you think. First of all, it's near impossible to build a decent web. It's got to be thick and strong, yet almost invisible; delicate and balanced, yet wide and spanning. And then, once you've got all that done, there's nothing to do. You have to _sit_ and _sit_ and _wait_ forever until some bug is dumb enough to get caught. This can take days. During all that time, you can't move an inch; you can't even twitch, or the bugs will be able to tell you're there.

And then! Jump, dive, get a bite! Leap, dodge, jump back in again! Scuttle around, trying to remember where the sticky threads are and where they're not. And all this, too, after days and days of complete inactivity.

Think that's fun? _No_. Which is why I honestly always preferred a box of mac and cheese to catching my own food. With mac and cheese, you don't have to wait very long. You can heat it up, scarf it down, and get on with your life.

That's what I want to do—get on with my life. Grow up, go to college, get a job, and be happy. Not _wait_. Waiting in Ferryport Landing is like waiting in the center of a web. You don't go anywhere. You're absolutely motionless. But instead of waiting for days, you're waiting for years, maybe even longer. It could easily turn into centuries.

And maybe some of the Everafters can wait that long, but not me. Of course, that's something of an oxymoron, isn't it? An impatient spider? Daddy always said I needed to have more patience. He told me nearly every morning as I stood around waiting agitatedly for him to finish cooking pancakes. It didn't just apply to pancakes, though. It was everything.

I hated lines, so I always cut in front. I hated not being somewhere on time, so I started running everywhere. And most of all, I hated waiting for the Grimms to die out.

I still remember one particular report card I brought home. Straight A's, and Outstandings in participation. Daddy read it with a beam on his face, then reached out and ruffled my hair. "That's my boy," he said. "You'll be off to one of the best colleges before we know it." But when I reminded him about the barrier, he waved away my concerns. "Just wait. We'll get out of here eventually."

I hate waiting.

But wait I did, because that was all I could do. I told myself that Ferryport Landing was a web, and I was at the center of it. I just had to wait for the Grimms, like the big, fat, idiotic flies they were, to bumble into it and die. But I couldn't twitch. I couldn't show a single sign that I hated them, or they'd figure me out. I couldn't give a single hint I was an Everafter, or they'd suspect me. I could just wait, virtually motionless, until the right moment. And though it would be a long wait, it would be worth it.

I told myself this again and again and again.

It was hard, though. On Sabrina's first day of school, I couldn't disguise my hatred of her. I wasn't Bella, after all. I was good at grades, not acting. So I all but hid behind Natalie, knowing—hoping—that Sabrina would assume I was just another stupid human. And I'm pretty sure it worked. She was too busy picking fights with Natalie and trying to ignore that fairy boy to pay attention to me. I was just the giggling idiot.

Ha! Giggling idiot! If only she knew why I was giggling. I giggled because every time I saw her, I immediately constructed a mental image of her caught in a web, thrashing about, trying to free herself. And as for "idiot," I highly doubt that she was all that clever herself. After all, look who she chose for her best friend—my sister.

And then one day, I though my wait was over. Deep under ground, inches away from the barrier, all that stood between the Grimms and death was a blonde girl with a broken arm and a shovel. She was terrified, though she said she wasn't. She was waiting for death.

And I stood there and laughed at the irony. _Who's waiting now, Grimm? _


	2. Smiling—Bella

One of the hardest things I've ever done was smile at Sabrina Grimm.

She was _it_, everything I hated about humans, concentrated, rolled up into one person. She was oh-so-ignorant of it, too. She complained about how small Ferryport Landing was; she didn't realize it was the entire _world_ to me. I'd never known anything else. She and all the other humans, walking around and smiling and all but rubbing it in our faces.

Going to school was like swimming in a vat of lemon juice after obtaining a million paper cuts. Every time she mentioned New York City, a place I'd only known from books and pictures, it was like I'd gotten yet another cut. And every time time I learned there was another Grimm, I could feel a whole new batch of lemon juice poured on top of me.

Sabrina Grimm was the biggest lemon of them all. She stalked around, growling about her stupid trivial problems. How could I smile at someone like that?

And yet I did. I smiled and laughed and fixed her stupid hair. Because what else could I have done? "To get out of this town, you need to trick them," Daddy said. "Smile at them. Be their friend." So I did.

And it ended with him dying.

I never hated Sabrina Grimm more than right then. She thought she was doing us a good turn, finding our "real" parents. But they didn't love me. They sold me; they didn't pat me on the head, telling me what a good actress I was. Daddy did. At home the afternoon of the day Sabrina Grimm came to school, he laughed with me about how gullible she was. "That's Daddy's little girl, " he said. "You'll be an actress someday, mark my words. You'll travel all over the world and see all sorts of fantastic places we'd only hear about otherwise. You'll be famous, Bella. I'm proud of you." He was proud of me because he didn't know how much effort it took. He had no idea how hard it was to smile, how hard it was for me to be Sabrina Grimm's "friend."

It was easier for him, I think. He didn't have a problem acting friendly toward her. After all, it was her anger that provided him with sustenance, more than anything the three of us could have felt. No, he didn't have a problem, so he assumed I didn't, either. He wouldn't have been able to understand the amount of willpower it took for me to keep the corners of my mouth up when I wanted to pull them back in a snarl, to walk with a skip when I wanted to stalk along, to keep a happy lilt in my voice when I just wanted to yell and scream.

But Daddy believed in me, so I kept right on smiling. It would be worth all the smiles, I told myself, when I was a world-famous actress and she was still slaving away in some lowly human job. What could she do, anyway? What was she good at? Absolutely nothing. She was more use to the world dead.

Dead. The word scared me. I wasn't tough like Natalie or happily careless like Toby. I wanted the Grimms dead, of course. How could I not? But I didn't want to _kill_ them. I didn't think I'd be capable of that. But I didn't tell Daddy—I couldn't disappoint him like that. So, once again, I pretended. "Daddy's little actress" pretended she didn't have a problem, when she did.

I spent a lot of time thinking about that. Death scared me, even though I knew I myself would never die. No, what scared me was the idea that I would see so many _other_ people enter and leave the world, enter and leave, enter and leave. But I wouldn't. I'd entered the world; I would never leave. Why, I wouldn't even leave Ferryport Landing.

That was the thought that finally made me resolute. Eventually, someday, each and every one of the Grimms would die. It would be so much better if they all just died at once! I would be able to get _out_ of this place! I could learn real acting, become a movie star, become the most famous person in the world! And I would never, ever have to give it up!

In general, I loved acting. There was just something attractive about being able to thrust myself into another life, the life of someone who wasn't trapped. I starred in so many school plays, I lost count. And it was easy for me—for the most part.

Smiling, though, _wasn't_ easy. _It's practice_, I tole myself. _You can do this_. So I did.

There was one time when I gave her a real smile, though. It was when she faced me with nothing but a shovel, deep underground. When I stepped out of the shadows, I didn't have to act. I smiled _at_ her; I laughed _at_ her. Because for once, she was right where I wanted her. Weak, powerless, helpless—and still wearing that ever-present scowl.

I met that scowl with a beaming face. _Scowl all you want, Grimm. I'm still smiling._

_

* * *

_**NOTE: I want to ask everybody one teensy-weensy favor! I want to know which "Sheepshank Kid" is everyone's favorite. I have a poll for this, and I'd like you all to vote in it. (So far, I have only three votes in it, so it's a perfect tie.) Go to my forum called The Scarlet Hand, click on the topic "The Sheepshank Kids," and vote. Please, it'll only take about two seconds of you life!**


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